Several key justices, including Anthony Kennedy, signaled they believe the right to firearms is sufficiently "fundamental" that it should cover people challenging state and local gun laws, as well as federal laws.

In 2008, when national gun rights advocates were looking for residents to challenge Chicago's ban on handguns, Otis McDonald was in effect looking for them. McDonald, 76, says he had seen his neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago turn from bad to worse over the years with "gangbangers and drug dealers."

The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday with whether a federal law barring support to terrorist organizations violates the First Amendment rights of humanitarian groups seeking to help them with peaceful solutions.

Supreme Court oral arguments this term have offered a series of reminders of how old-fashioned this court is and how whimsically dated its reference points can be. The justices' hypothetical questions in recent cases have recalled an era, when, say, men sported fedoras, listened to old-time radio shows and kept Dale Carnegie's 1936 tome on winning friends and influencing people on the shelf.

Corporations and unions can unleash millions of dollars on campaign ads to help defeat or elect candidates, under a sweeping Supreme Court decision Thursday that rolls back decades-old limits on political spending.

Government cannot restrict corporations from spending money to influence political campaigns, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in an opinion that immediately reverberated across the political landscape.

In wide-ranging oral arguments Wednesday, the Supreme Court appeared unlikely to completely shield the National Football League from antitrust liability in contracts for logo merchandise or in other joint team deals.